The Red Door Studio

I was twenty when I first saw the place, a stone’s throw from the old fish market in Port Blossom, a coastal town that smelled of brine and rust. The rent was a steal, and the only catch was a shared bathroom down a narrow alley, tucked behind the main building. The studio itself was on the second floor of a converted warehouse, its windows overlooking the harbor where fishing boats bobbed like restless ghosts.

My name is Lena, and I grew up inland, among the red dirt and spinifex of the Pilbara, where my grandmother taught me to listen to the wind. She said the old spirits traveled on it, and that some places held their breath. I never quite believed her until I stepped into that studio. The air was thick, like the room had been holding its breath for years. But the price was right, and the landlord, a wiry man with a limp, said, ‘You’ll be fine, just don’t mind the damp.’ I didn’t ask what he meant.

The first week was ordinary. I’d wake to the sound of gulls and the clatter of crates, and I’d walk the five steps to the alley to brush my teeth in that dank little room with its flickering fluorescent light. The walls were scrawled with years of graffiti, names and dates and crude drawings, but one thing stood out: a single red door painted on the far wall, perfect in every detail, even a tiny brass knob that glinted in the half-light. I laughed it off as an artist’s joke.

Then the dreams started. I’d see the door from the inside, and behind it was a long corridor lined with locked doors, each one humming faintly. At the end, a woman with hair like seaweed would press her face against a small window and mouth words I couldn’t hear. I’d wake up gasping, the taste of salt on my lips.

One evening, I came back late from a shift at the dockside café to find the bathroom door ajar. The light was off, but I could see a faint glow from the painted red door. I pushed it open, and the corridor was there, just like in my dream. The woman was waiting at the end, and this time I heard her: ‘Let me out.’ Her voice was a low vibration that seemed to come from the walls. I fled, but the door wouldn’t close behind me.

I tried to tell myself it was exhaustion, too much coffee, the stress of a new job. But then I noticed things moving in my studio. My grandmother’s necklace, a twist of red string and a kangaroo tooth, would end up on the floor by the window each morning. And the air grew colder, despite the summer heat outside.

I called my grandmother, who still lived in the Pilbara, and described the building. There was a long silence on the line. Then she said, ‘There’s a place like that in every port town, lass. A place where the sea takes and doesn’t give back. That woman, she’s been waiting a long time. Don’t open the door.’ I asked how to close it, and she said, ‘You can’t. You can only walk away.’

But I couldn’t afford to walk away. I had no savings, no family nearby. So I decided to face it. I bought a tin of red paint and a brush, and I went to the bathroom with the intention of painting over the door. But when I got there, the door was already open, and the corridor was darker than before. The humming was louder, and the woman’s face was pressed against the window, her eyes like two black stones. ‘You’re the first who can see me,’ she said. ‘Others just used the room and left. But you see me.’

Her voice was pleading. ‘They stole my ring. The one that holds me to the deep. Find it and I can go back.’ She held up a skeletal hand, and a single gold band glittered on her finger. ‘They buried it in the garden out back, under the fig tree. Go now, before the tide turns.’

I didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but I felt a pull, a duty. The next day, I dug under the fig tree, a gnarled old thing that grew from a crack in the pavement. My shovel hit something hard, and I unearthed a small tin box. Inside was a gold ring, tarnished and cold. I pocketed it and returned to the bathroom.

The woman was more solid now, her dress dripping saltwater onto the floor. ‘Give it to me,’ she said, and I did. As soon as the ring touched her palm, the door began to flicker, and the corridor behind her turned to white foam. Her lips moved in a silent thank you, and then she was gone, leaving only a puddle of seawater and the painted door, now faded and cracked.

I thought it was over. But that night, I dreamed of the corridor again, and all the other locked doors were swinging open. In each one, a figure stood, their eyes hollow, their mouths open in silent screams. And I knew I’d only freed one. The others were still waiting.

The next morning, I went to the bathroom to find the wall blank, the red door vanished. But in its place was a new painting: a single word in white paint, ‘THANKS,’ and a small arrow pointing to the floor. Underneath, there was a crack in the concrete, and when I peered into it, I saw a tiny red door, just an inch high, painted inside a fissure. And I heard a faint whisper: ‘One down.’

I haven’t slept in three days. I’ve tried to find another flat, but every place in this town has the same hum, the same smell of brine. And every time I close my eyes, I see those doors, and I wonder if my grandmother’s spirits are still watching, or if I’ve just become the new keeper of this threshold. The landlord gave me a key to the bathroom, a new one, but I don’t use it. I can’t. Because when I look at that key, I see her smile, and I know she left something behind—a gift, or a curse. I don’t know which.